Delta County is an open range county. This information came as a surprise not only to the Delta County Commissioners Court but to Sheriff Ricky Smith, as well.
“Texas is an open range State, and livestock can be free. However this does not apply to public highways or county roads,” said Delta County Sheriff Ricky Smith, Monday morning. “Farmers must fence out cattle. After doing some research in the clerk’s office we discovered Delta County has been open range since 1906.”
He said this information is very significant to their work as almost 25 percent of their calls are for loose livestock. He said this will greatly affect how they answer these calls now.
There are 234 closed range counties in Texas with Hood County being the closest open range (and it is actually split range), and it requires an election (which is by precincts) to make Delta County closed range too. This is common in the West Texas areas where larger ranches are located.
Sheriff Smith believes this is manageable until the next regular election. The Court opted to table the item to give the Sheriff and County Attorney Jay Garrett time to investigate the topic.
The County expressed their appreciation to Tanner Steward of the Delta County Sheriff’s office and the inmate work program participants for the excellent job they did repainting the entire third floor courtroom ceiling, walls and floor which took a week of labor to complete.
Court will meet again on Tuesday, May 26 at 9 a.m. due to the Memorial Day holiday.